Mourinho - Serie A Saviour?

Goalaccio! Come on, we all remember tuning into Chanel 4 on Saturday mornings and Sunday Afternoons in the early nineties. The boom of Italian football in this period was down to the end of English football on terrestrial TV thanks to Sky and the transfer of arguably England’s finest player Paul Gascoigne from Tottenham soccer club to Lazio. Italian football has since gone on a dark journey through corruption, allegations, point-deductions, riots and endless scandals. The 2007-08 season saw Inter Milan stutter to their third consecutive Scudetto title but with little competition from a seemingly uninterested Roma side. If there is one man who can take Serie A by the scruff of the neck and drag it back into the limelight for all the right reasons then it’s Jose Mourinho.

The self acclaimed Special One has all the attributes to spark life back into a dreary and lacklustre league and Italian football is crying out for somebody with his panache, his audacity and his downright arrogance. In personality terms he is the antitheses of his predecessor Roberto Mancini who lost his way at the back end of last season. Mourinho’s first job will be to clear the deadwood from Inter’s squad and bring in his own acquisitions.

Early signs suggest that it’s goodbye to the old guard with the likes of Dejan Stankovic being shown the door and hello to some of Europe’s finest young talent with Inter being linked to the likes of Ricardo Quaresma. Also, Didier Drogba, Ricardo Carvalho and Alexander Hleb have all strongly been linked to the San Siro and news this week suggests that Frank Lampard has agreed a deal to join up with his old manager, a move that could perhaps get more people in the U.K tuning into watch the live games on Sunday afternoons again.

The season is shaping up to be a really interesting one with Juventus slowly getting back to full strength after the match fixing scandal, AC Milan surely won’t be allowed another season in the wilderness, Fiorentina are strengthening well and Roma under their coach Spalletti are always going to be competing at the top and they have already been linked to some quality players, although they did pay £4million for John Arne Riise.

The TV rights for next seasons Serie A games are up for grabs as Channel 5 did not wish to continuing broadcasting them (no more Laura Esposto for us, damn it) but whoever gains the rights can expect to airing an explosive season that may prove to be a very special one.